Apodaca: Orange County enlists top talent as it forms a Climate Action Plan

After taking office as an Orange County Supervisor in 2021, Katrina Foley noticed something amiss. Cups and other products made from polystyrene foam were still being used at county facilities.

Commonly known as Styrofoam, this material is notorious for breaking into carcinogenic microplastics that are nonbiodegradable and nonrecyclable, and which can travel vast distances, polluting land and sea alike.

But Foley also saw the bigger problem at work. The county lacked a framework for measuring greenhouse gas emissions and adopting programs and practices for reducing the emissions at all its facilities and operations — what’s known as a Climate Action Plan.

Such plans have been adopted by governments large and small, from individual municipalities to California’s ambitious statewide initiative that has made it a leader in environmental policy with a goal of achieving net zero carbon pollution by 2045. Though the targets set by these plans will require considerable effort, strides are being made toward not only reducing the carbon footprints of public operations but improving efficiency.

Orange County needed to get on board, Foley realized. The foam cups were “the first sign to me that we didn’t have a plan.”

So she got to work. Now, four years later, the Orange County Climate Action Plan is nearing the last major step toward becoming reality. If all goes well, it will receive final approval by the end of the year.

While that would be very welcome news, as it would set Orange County on a more environmentally responsible and cost-effective path, significant hurdles and possibly outright roadblocks could be encountered. More on that later.

So far, at least, progress is being made.

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Foley, now vice chair of the Board of Supervisors, realized early on that a point person was needed. That person was found in Tara Tisopulos, who has been on the job for about a year as the Deputy Director of Environmental Sustainability at OC Waste & Recycling.

Tisopulos has worked in environmental management for more than 30 years. Now she is tasked with overseeing Orange County’s sustainability efforts and collaborating with all 22 county departments and the County Executive Office to develop and implement the climate plan. She also coordinates with individual cities, and even other counties, to identify areas of cooperation.

Her first order of business was to inventory county operations — including landfills, the airport, harbors, the Sheriff’s Department and county-owned fleets of vehicles — to find out where to target resources.

“We needed to know the starting point,” she said. “We wanted to see what our own footprint looked like.”

That inventory was completed last summer. What she found was that the overwhelming share of county-produced greenhouse gasses — 87% — came from its three active landfills. Inactive landfill sites, about 20 in all, are also still emitting the climate-warming gasses. So those landfills must be a chief area addressed by the plan.

Tisopulos was pleased to learn that the county was already “way ahead of the game on landfill technology.” But there’s much more to be done, she said, such as developing a plan to convert emissions into usable energy.

There are many other areas of concern that Tisopulos has identified, including coastal erosion, sea level rise, extreme weather events, and wildfire prevention and response. One of her top priorities is environmental justice, which is aimed at helping poor and marginalized communities that are often subjected to greater risk because of their proximity to freeways, pollution-spewing plants and other environmental hazards.

Accountability is also baked into the plan, with annual progress reports and a full accounting every five years, after which priorities and methods might be shuffled based on needs and results.

Now the bad news, or at least extremely worrisome.

It will come as no surprise that every action item addressed in the plan will depend on one crucial factor: money.

Although, as mentioned, the plan will outline ways for the county to operate more efficiently, sustainably and healthfully — saving us money in the long run — it will require initial investments. Foley and Tisopulos have been focusing on securing funding largely through state and federal grants.

It’s the federal part that is now in danger because of the Trump Administration’s desire to cut off such outlays and its stated denial of climate change. On the days that I interviewed Foley and Tisopulos, they were trying to figure out how the attempt to freeze all federal grants and loans — and the whipsaw environment created by conflicting statements from the administration and legal challenges to its policies — would play out.

“I think it’s very shortsighted,” said Foley, referring to the potential loss of federal funding. She also noted that California contributes far more to federal coffers than it gets back, a point that is often sidelined when the state is in need of assistance.

“Hopefully we don’t have an extreme weather event in the next few years that wipes out coastal rail.”

Nonetheless, both Foley and Tisopulos expressed confidence that Orange County will move forward with its plan.

“We will be fine,” said Foley. “We will carry on.”

I take some comfort from their assurances and look forward to reporting on specific aspects of the plan in action. For now, every Orange County resident should get behind the plan and urge their elected representatives to do their part to secure the funding necessary to ensure the clean and healthy future we all desire.